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For the first time in the now two years that I have been posting, I received an email questioning the worth of it.

45 is still in office. Congress remains cowardly. Yes, there are some inroads of integrity as a result of the midterm elections, but…

Perhaps this questioner is unaware that I could never be brash enough to imagine I can change the oligarchical agenda or minds polluted with hate.

As I’ve said from the very beginning, all I but desperately hoped to do was offer an affirmation for those who — while keeping Jefferson’s dictum to maintain a vigilant watch over those in power — never abandon attention to people and things that matter.

After all, sarcasm, shallow irony, and cynicism are easy. What is difficult is to refrain from saying, “Honey, can’t you see that I’m watching the news?!” Or refrain from turning every conversation into a rant instead of asking, “So, tell me what’s been happening with you?” To instead feed the birds or visit the one grieving down the street.

When the synagogue in my home city of Pittsburgh suffered the hate-initiated mass killings, 45 of course drew attention to himself.

Noah Farkas, the nephew of poet Joy Friedler, is a rabbi in Los Angeles who answered the killings with an invocation to his city. He kindly allowed me to excerpt his:

Thank you Supervisor Ridley-Thomas for asking me to come this morning. Indeed it is a difficult morning. The last few days have tested our resolve. On this past Shabbat, the sabbath, a man filled with hate murdered eleven worshipers simply because they were Jews. They came for respite and found only violence. But I would be remiss if I did not mention that this attack-the bloodiest massacre of Jews in this country’s history-an attack meant to divide us, was a singular event. Just hours earlier two elderly African American patrons were gunned down in a grocery store because of the color of their skin. At the same moment, an assassination attempt against our nation’s leaders and former leaders was still unfolding. Such violence, such hatred, such cruelty.

As a nation we must understand that an assault during the sabbath is an assault on the sabbath itself. It’s an assault on all of us, not just Jews. On the poetry that is America.

If we are to overcome the hatred, racism and anti-semitism that has reared its ugly head we must set for ourselves the task of reaching across our divides and be fully present for each other. We cannot live only with an either/or paradigm that says that when I win you lose. Or that when you win I must lose. Your redemption cannot come to fruition on the back of my neck, nor can my freedom be at the expense of your blood and treasure. Yours and mine are the same.

It was at night when they came for us. It was at night when the Nazis marched against us. It is at night when they broke the glass and burned the crosses. Came into our houses of worship, our schools, our businesses, our homes. It was at night when the tophets glowed the brightest.

In the morning, joy will come. In the morning, for only in the morning, after a long night, in partnership with other people, together, do we dare say it will be good

.–Rabbi Noah Farkas

I can’t help noticing the ways this invocation lays itself within every place in our lives, our towns and cities, our schools and churches, our neighborhoods, our divisive hearts. We have received permission from 45 to break the fragile bonds that hold us together. Farkas seeks to mend them.

And I think that is one of the great gifts of the arts. The bonds formed by noticing the sameness and the differences. There is Bohemian Rhapsody and there is Debussy. I began each of my poetry writing classes by reminding the students that it is good to find out what we have in common and where to find common ground. “But in our poetry class we are going to seek out our differences. You are safe here to be who you are. It MUST be safe here for each of you to be you. And that is going to reveal through your art that you are not the same. However we will refrain from being cruel. There will not be room for even one eye to roll. We are going to delight in our differences.”

A repeat–

The Man Who Wanted to Change the World

He thought changing the nouns
might help. No one could say
“gun” in the same old way. You
would have to pause, say,
“What’s the name again? Oh,
yes, sassafras.” You would hear,
“Give me the wisteria to the car,”
or find yourself asking, “Why
don’t we add some whispers
to the bottom line?” He realized
this one long, hazy afternoon
while staring up into the trees,
into the wild acceptance
of their branches’ tangle. He
watched the light settle on
the leaves. He believed
the robins, vireos, and
nuthatches could see it.
Later that evening drying
his dinner plate, he felt everything
around him leaving, felt himself
alone amid the sparkles of remaining
dust. Before bed, he addressed, sealed,
and stamped a stack of empty
envelopes, one for everyone
he loved. The next morning
he made his first list: bread dough,
lightning, salt, candle, mourning dove,
while he thought of last laugh,
coffin, profit margin, highway, lie.

My thanks to Rabbi Farkas for permission to share his invocation, and to his beloved Aunt Joy Friedler, a poet whose valuable work I encourage you to explore. Her latest collection is Capture Theory. Her previous collections include Dutiful Heart and Like Vapor.

Two years ago today, I promised weekly posts as a contrast to 45 until he was out of office. I did not believe that two years later he would still be perched on his obscene and life-destructive dead branch.

This post could perhaps be seen not as a contrast, however, I truly mean it to be, and to draw attention to what has always been what this country has cared about with the hope that hope can be resurrected.

>>Joy alert: Following this post is a list of absolutely wonderful news, on the publishing front, of new works that can sustain you, fascinate, illuminate, educate in the most humane ways, and offer experiences you perhaps have not had. So either skip past the post first for joy, or know the joy awaits.<<

Over the past seven months I have learned what it’s like to be a campaign manager (through the woman I get to be the husband to — Julie) for a candidate with full integrity and also what it’s like to be a full supporter of four other candidates who carry what today has become too often an anachronism–that same integrity. And then to watch them lose to five candidates who revealed their lack of integrity by barely showing up, or accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from you-know-who so that they can continue to dismantle democracy and replace it with their oligarchy.

I have also learned what it’s like to be a helpless spouse who tries to do and say the right thing when there is no right thing to say or do. Sometimes I think it’s the curse we men carry who don’t blurt out the old “cheer up,” “get on with it,” “look on the bright side,” “some others won,” “we’re making advances in what matters” gene.

Last night here we watched our five local candidates, who both act on what they care about and have real plans (for accessible health care, budgeting to benefit those in need, safe water, reliable infrastructure, schools that give teachers salaries and classroom sizes that enable students to not only learn, but also become themselves rather than cogs in the machine that enable those who have no need to work to continue to have no need to work, the destruction of the planet, and more) LOSE to candidates who didn’t even campaign.

Imagine this, the people who WON refused to show up for forums. When asked by the press to answer questions for print, they didn’t. They accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from dark and corporate PACs — willing to have their corporate patrons tell them what to say and how to legislate. They lied outright about our candidates, which seems to be accepted practice under 45. They didn’t need to connect with anyone except tycoons, megachurches, gun fetishists, and any organization willing to tell their audiences, “vote for _______ or else.”

The people who gave five, ten, fifty, a hundred dollars to Julie’s candidates gave because they knew these candidates would work for what matters.

Those who backed the winners sustained their own selfish agenda. The winners oh so often say they care about us–with a smug simulacrum of honesty. However, that’s all: “I care.” The record shows they haven’t yet acted on this obfuscated word.

Let’s face it. The business of America is business.

I prefer the New Testament woman with only a few shekels who gave them all away.

I am staring now at my dogs, for whom this day is just another day. I want to be my dogs.

Living in the 21st Century

Long before there was this day
another day came. Maybe it rained
or there was a little sunlight. People

got up and did what they always do.
Birds sang and the cats wanted out,
or in. You and I weren’t here,

but the world didn’t know. Trees
grew and nobody noticed. Someone
was cruel. Someone else

tried not to be. Maybe the weather
shifted unexpectedly and plans
had to be changed. This morning

we watched our day begin. We
wondered if it would be good,
wondered if it would rain.

1. Greg Rappleye’s collection, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds has been released by Dos Madres Press. That’s the same press that published David James’s moving if god were gentle. Leslie Harrison, finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, says “The core of the book is a series of poems about the life and paintings of Martin Johnson Heade, and the poems, like the paintings, are intricate, gorgeous, and deeply, quietly felt. In range and scope this book is unique.”

2. Gayle Boss’s All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings, with stunning woodcuts by David G. Klein, has been published by Paraclete Press. Obviously this is a book for the Advent, Christmas, and Holiday Season. Richard Rohr writes, “Adapting to the dark and cold [each of the beautiful creatures in this book] announce…that through every dark door the creating Love of the universe waits.” And the late Brian Doyle, author of Chicago: A Novel, wrote “A wonderfully refreshing sidelong book that makes you stop and think and ponder and consider and contemplate and see not only Advent but your entire blessed life with new eyes.”

3. Jim Hanson’s 137 page — yes 137 page — poem About Florence has been published. Jim gave a recent reading of the entire collection, all composed in blank verse. He noted that there was an intermission.

All three collections can be ordered in the usual ways, found in area bookstores, or by contacting the authors.

AND–Mark Hiskes’s collection Standing with Alyosha has been accepted for publication, also by Dos Madres Press. Dos Madres recognizes these close-by, remarkable poets, all of whom know one another. What a joy!

And–a new weekly online publication has been created by Reka Jellema and Kathleen Schenk: Holland Weekly! It welcomes all writings about Holland and the area. As the editors point out, “It’s a new kind of journalism!” Check it out. I really think you’ll be delighted. Do consider contributing.

Alas I wasn’t able to attend the reading at Central Michigan University by honored German poet Eva Christina Zeller who follows these posts and has become an online friend. Eva lives in the same city of Tübingen, Germany, as dear friend Norbert Kraas. It was Norbert who introduced me to Christian Zaschke. The world is smaller than it feels.

I’ve been raking leaves. I like raking leaves. We won’t get into the metaphorical experience of raking leaves. I just like raking leaves.

At the same time that I’m experiencing this rather inane mantra of reach–pull, reach-pull, Julie, whom I get to be husband to as best I fallibly can, is within the last two weeks of managing the campaign of Garnet Lewis for State Senate here in Michigan. Garnet isn’t even the opposite of 45, because she is for what matters. To compare Goodness to 45 is as much a waste of an intelligence as writing your first year college paper revealing for the first time the differences between Mother Teresa and Attila the Hun.

So the point: For months now Julie has been working tirelessly in behalf of what matters. Instead of economic greed, displaced human values, a despoiled environment, an educational system that makes it impossible for teachers and students, taxes that keep the non-working class able to continue to not have to work, and and and, she is working to prevent an inevitable loss of democracy and the environment to this unrestrained capitalism and a demagogue.

Yesterday I paused for several hours from raking leaves and texted a very civil message in behalf of Garnet to voters in our district. There wasn’t a pushy word in the text. It was actually more of an invitation, worded not much differently than “Would you like to come over for some wine and cheese?”

Among the responses I received were thoughtful, civil affirmations and responses saying kindly that they were for Garn or for the other candidate. Also among the responses were those using words that actually frightened me. Some were so coarse they are unprintable. Some claimed I was something that I had no idea existed. Some were downright cruel. I kept wondering, why? What turns a child who at one time likely played in the leaves into someone verbally monstrous?

My awestruck admiration for Julie soared. And I went back to raking leaves.

Raking Leaves with the Gods

For a month, there have been leaves.
Scattered over the pea stone paths

that lead us through the shade
of our gardens, beech and birch,

oak, ash and even larch leaves
lie, their ends dry and curling

toward their veins. I rake and
make believe I am a Zen-traveled

monk smoothing the surface, quieting
the loss into a calm within a heart’s

You know there is this idea in the world that the French think very little of the Americans: Rude. Boorish.

When really, it’s just that our people often lack enough respect to learn to say, “I am sorry, but I don’t speak French,” when speaking to a French person. In France.

Two Stories–

How we got to be so fortunate as to get to be Meridith’s parents is beyond us. As a college senior she was awarded a Watson Fellowship for her project to paint as a contemporary woman in the footsteps of Cezanne from Paris to Aix en Provence.

While in Paris, on the street by Notre Dame, Meridith, or as she was also named when she was born — Mimi — was struck by a hit-and-run motorcyclist. A friend she’d made called us. I speak no French. Julie speaks just a bit. She called the hospital, said that her French was poor (in French) and was told not to worry. Julie then inquired about Mimi. “Oh the little red-haired girl. It’s very serious; however, the surgery has gone well and she will be fine. Please do not worry. We like her very much.”

We flew to Paris. We went to the hospital, said we were the parents of Meridith Ridl and want to take care of things. “Oh no. There is nothing for you to do but take good care of your daughter.”

“Thank you, but I mean that we want to take care of the cost.” “No cost. We care about the people who need us.” Pause. “Oh, I’m sorry. There is one thing: $25 for copying fees.” For her ambulence, her surgery and several days in the hospital.

Once Mimi was feeling well enough to walk, though for a while she felt panic at each curb we crossed, she and I went to Sainte Chapelle, the cathedral with the stained glass that seems to soar into a heaven.

We sat on a little green bench while about a dozen Americans were arguing, shouting at the woman who accepted the entry fee: “What the hell do you mean you don’t have change?! You have to have some god damn change!” It went on.

I turned to Mimi, said, “We don’t have the correct change.” “Don’t worry, Pere, we’ll speak French. All they had to do was apologize that they didn’t.” And we entered the wonder of Sainte Chapelle, change in our pocket.

A couple of days ago my sister returned from ten days in Paris. Almost every French person she encountered said to her, “We are so worried about you, about what is happening in your country. Sometimes we are scared of (45). Are you?”

Monet’s “Winter on the Seine, Lavacourt”

These blues were never in the world.
He would have had to let his palette

find this benign freeze, this landscape
still as a stoic’s paradise. The ice must

have lain beneath his frayed gray gloves
as he thrust his brush stiff across

the canvas. His red spreads from the sun.
Nothing else moves. In this infinity

of cold, this pitiless lucidity of fading light,
the dead walk across the river into town.

A woman calmly, straightforwardly, courageously told us what happened and was tossed aside with all the other women living a lifetime with trauma caused by those who rage and rape and grab and grovel and deny and demand and cry and creep.

Brat CanHeEverGnaw will take his smug seat. And Ginsburg will look him in the eye and know. She’ll know all right.

I get to be Julie’s husband. I have learned of her being physically and verbally abused when she was a restaurant server, when she worked in the corporate world, when she met with so-called Christians, when she as a young gift worked at the “Tenth Tee” at a golf course, when she handed out ski equipment. She’s not an exception. Is there any way I can prevent it? I can only be outraged, understand, try to comfort, change the focus to a British mystery on PBS.

That’s Enough

At times like these, we should
sit down, maybe pet our dogs,
or listen to the way even Bach
left out notes. We should have
a sandwich, something light,
thick tomato slices, lettuce,
slather on the mayonnaise.
(I wonder how fish let their
impulses settle in their cells.)
Sit down. Just sit, there,
on that end of the couch. Let
your arm drape over the side.
Imagine the wind has come
through the window, has turned
itself into a garden monk who is
opening his sack, flicking his
bamboo fan in front of your face.
Let every word in the world
become a vireo. Let them
overrun the yard. We’ll count
back into yesterday, the widower
knocking at the back door.

I can’t imagine having to try to convince you that Brat Craven-gnaw is unfit to serve anyone, let alone bring reason to the Supreme Court.

And watching that Profile in Cowardice called a shouting; er, I mean a hearing, one can easily conclude that even politics no longer exists. This is a government of the government, for the government, by the government. Lincoln’s words have “perished from the earth.”

On the other hand, I can’t remember witnessing anything like the courage and sacrifice of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. That was for all of us.

The contrast is so telling.

I need to calm down. Join me—–

Guided Meditation

Sit in a way that allows you to be comfortable
and relaxed. Do not let this hot and humid morning
enter your mind. Empty your mind, even if you

were up until 3am trying to forget what
your doctor told you yesterday afternoon. Now
take three deep breaths allowing yourself

to savor the mysterious gift that you
are breathing. You are breathing here
during this one moment, the only moment

that the benevolence of the earth gives
during this moment. This is your moment
even though we do not yet know

what a moment is. I often wonder what
the moment is just prior to the moment.
But that is a thought. And this is a yoga

meditation, and we are to accept each thought
as simply something that passes through us
and goes on its merry, or often un-merry, way.

Take another breath counting to four on the inhale
while picturing a gnome strolling up your nostrils
lugging a bag of gentle breezes, then count to six

on the exhale as the gnome cascades ass over
essential oils on an avalanche of air. Feel
your whole body fully relaxed. Continue breathing.

Picture a candle in a cave. Do not ask why in the
whole wide world there is a candle in a cave. If
you do, see in the question a yogi smiling as he

searches for the matches. Continue breathing.
And now imagine a field of lotus flowers. Or
if you are from the midwest and unfamiliar

with lotus flowers you can always substitute corn.
Now picture rain on a roof. Listen to it. Listen
to the distant cough of thunder. Just listen. Don’t

think about what you left out to ruin the last time
it rained. Continue breathing, and as you do, allow
any image to appear on the multiplex of your mind.

Be sure not to fixate on any one image. If a lover
old or new comes at you with a flame thrower, just
sit, watch, let it all pass, be glad your ego’s been emulsified.

Stay relaxed. Continue breathing. Feel the comfort
of your whole body as you repeat the mantra, “I am
at peace. I am totally at peace. I am really, totally at peace.”

Now that you are at peace, feel your feet, palms, pelvic floor
fully at rest in the room. Come to Sukhasana. Bring your hands
to your heart, and join me for one long peaceful Om.

During this “pause” in civilization how do we take care of our own soulful selves? Julie and I read while sitting with one another and our two dogs, Vivian and Charlie. Once in awhile cat Hattie comes out and passes by, acknowledging her presence more than ours.

The act of reading itself is mysterious to me. What are we doing when we read? What’s actually happening? All I know is that it has saved me over and over again. Do you have a reading regimen? One book at a time? A particular genre? Only fiction? Only non-fiction? A particular writer? Maybe a particular mystery writer?

I often told my students that when we read, we come alive. And especially in this
neverland, reading can place us in a world with value and bring out the best in us.

I read a bunch of books at a time. Our son-in-law says I have reading ADD.

Right now I’m wandering in Small Fry, a memoir by Steve Jobs’s daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs; Steve Hughes’s Stiff, a collection of hardscrabble urban short stories; Christ Actually by James Carroll; Thoreau: A Life, a biography by Laura Dassow Walls who brings Henry to life; Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes; Johnny Appleseed by Jennifer Clark; the memoir get me out of here by Rachel Relland about her life as and recovery from borderline personality disorder; Richard Jones’s Stranger Here; and yes, Bob Woodward’s FEAR, which has to be followed by a restoration to sanity with Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones. My brain spins me to sleep.

The other day our dear friend Rebecca Klott was telling us about her time wandering in Powell’s Bookstore, a wonderfully overwhelming experience.

Let’s take a break and wander in the books that bring us back to a civilized day.

I’ve Never Seen So Many Books

This bookstore sure has lots of books.
Books in crannies, books in nooks.
Books for browsing bibliophiles
In aisles, in piles, for miles and miles.
Books on fiction, books on fact.
Books on friction, books on tact.
Books on unexpected heroes,
For computer geeks with ones and zeroes.
Books on gods that are and are not.
How to survive a pre-owned car lot.
Books on how to plant a garden.
Books on how to gain a pardon.
Books on trees, on bees, PCs,
Avoiding fleas and tacked on fees.
Books on every kind of pill.
On if you should or shouldn’t grill.
Books to make the hard seem easy.
Books on how to play Parcheesi.
Books on fraud, on sod, iPod.
On how to build the perfect bod.
Books on paints and glue and gook.
On what it takes and who got took.
Books on marriage and divorce.
Books on how to breed a horse.
Books to lessen stress, relax us.
How to deal with fractious taxes.
Books on making wine from peaches.
Books to take to summer beaches.
Books on music, dance, and art.
On playing dumb, on playing smart.
Books to lead you back to church.
Books to pull you from the lurch.
Books on style, or jog a mile.
On perfect health with Andrew Weil.
Books for teachers, books for pupils.
Books on loopholes and on scruples.
Books on staying home or travel.
Books on gravy, grieving, gravel.
Mad books, bad books, fad books, sad books,
Glad books, even I’ve been had books.
Books on ticks and tacks and talks.
Books on wicks and wax and woks.
On the smiling Dalai Lama
Books on Donald and Obama.
Books on what to wear when hiking.
On where to go fat tire biking.
On how to gain a leadership.
Get a grip, a readership.
Books by, and on, and pushed by Oprah.
To lift your spirits with Deepak Chopra.
On raising flags and lowering fats.
On living with a hundred cats.
On how to become a mover, Shaker,
Baker, Quaker, a great Great Laker.
Books for kids and older folks,
On telling lies, on telling jokes.
Books on how to micro-brew.
Avoid e-coli or the flu.
On pizza, pasta, crossword puzzles.
What you should sip, throw down with guzzles.
On how to be a better cook.
On how to hook a second look.
Books to make us less neurotic.
Less robotic, more erotic.
Books on Zen and Krishnamurti.
Books on living after thirty.
On learning basic economics,
gastronomics, plate tectonics.
Books on how to raise a puppy.
Raise a roof, a kid, a guppy.
And if your space for books should dwindle.
Find a zillion on your Kindle.
Holy cow! Good grief! Gadzooks!
I’ve never seen so many books!

Still a few spots for The Lost Lake Writers Retreat. It’s such a beautiful setting, almost too beautiful to be able to write anything. It’s an R and R spot. You can write when you get home after being uplifted by everyone there. Check it out!

The Hope College Visiting Writers Series will be hosting writers Matthew Baker, Anne-Marie Oomen,, Linda Nemec Foster, and painter/illustrator Meridith Ridl. Tomorrow, 7pm, in the concert hall of the Jack Miller Music Center.

Julie and I are members of the Douglas UCC Creation Justice Team, a group that believes that the way we treat the environment is a matter of justice. We organized our own “Big Read” of Dan Egan’s extraordinarily important book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, and Tuesday evening a large group gathered to talk about the urgency of not only protecting, but saving the Great Lakes.

It’s unsettling how few of us realize that what is happening to our water everywhere is dire, and without water becoming an issue that everyone becomes aware of, that same everyone will have their lives threatened and the lives who live after become all but unlivable.

Does 45 care? How could he? He doesn’t read. He doesn’t listen. He is the master of “I wouldn’t be around anyway.”

He’d say, “Climate change? A hoax. Damn rain.”

The Rain on the Burren

I.

The morning rain comes every day, bleak
across the grays of limestone. It falls
on the dolmen, austere and singular
since the cold people of the stone age
hoisted the great slab over their dead.
At home this rain would be a reason
to change our little plans. But here we
assume our noses will drip, our feet
will be wet as we walk the roadside
along the stone walls covered in gorse
and wild roses, our breath will warm
our hands. At home, we would be
having our breakfast on the porch,
a bowl of strawberries in cold milk.
In this day’s beginning we let our hands
wrap around a steaming cup of tea,
then find their way to each other.

II.

The rain here is a burst along the horizontal
or a languid drizzle, the light seeming to lag
behind the day’s gray crawl across the limestone.
Peat-dappled smoke rises sweet within the soft
damp, hints at a warm corner, or after the lost hours
of work, a hearth and finally sleep. The chill is mute.
Tomorrow the sun may come, glistening its light
across the subtleties of green and the blue
of the spring gentians, ellipses between the neolithic
slabs and glacial blunder of boulders. And always
this benevolence of stillness, the rain.

Congratulations to Susan Glassmeyer, recently named “Ohio Poet of the Year” for her latest collection Invisible Fish (Dos Madres Press) Dos Madres also published David James’s recent collection, if god were gentle, and will be publishing Greg Rappleye’s collection Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds.

Still a few spots for The Lost Lake Writers Retreat. It’s such a beautiful setting, almost too beautiful to be able to write anything. It’s an R and R spot. You can write when you get home after being uplifted by everyone there. Check it out!

The Hope College Visiting Writers Series will be hosting writers Matthew Baker, Anne-Marie Oomen,, Linda Nemec Foster, and painter/illustrator Meridith Ridl. Thursday, 7pm, in the concert hall of the Jack Miller Music Center.

On September 27 at 7:00pm, The Hope College Visiting Writers Series will open with readings by Matthew Baker and by Linda Nemec Foster and Anne Marie Oomen with illustrator Meridith Ridl from their book The Lake Michigan Mermaid. The readings will be held in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Music Center.